Light Years Away
by U-Mos
Summary: Starts somewhere in the middle of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Metroid and F-Zero crossover.
1. Dark Aether

The sky is a haze of endless purple poison. The never-ending silence here would drive anyone insane. But there is no one here. Except for Samus. Samus and the Ing. All the previous heroes, all the Luminoth who fought, are dead. Just like everything else in Dark Aether.

Occasionally, an echo breaks the silence. The echoes... they can be heard moving...upwards. It is not quite possible to tell where they're coming from. It's been over one Earth-month since Samus landed on Aether. It feels like six.

_Will I ever get out of this place?_

This Dark World journey has lasted about eight days so far. Over an entire Earth-week since Samus has last seen light.

_So lonely..._

There is a quiet grunt nearby.

_So tired..._

The five-legged Ing creeps closer. Samus comes to her senses, but it's too late.

_Wait, what's that.._"AAH!"

The Ing is already in it's gas form, surrounding Samus. Two sharp legs reach out of the gas and pull Samus down, binding her. The suit starts to corrode from this contact. While held down on her back, she can do nothing to attack the strong Ing. Samus is in a death-grip and her suit is being destroyed. The Ing's legs speed up the corrosion where they're gripping her sides. Dark Aether's atmosphere is deadly, and hole in the suit would mean fatal exposure.

Samus fires her grappler at the ceiling. The beam of energy makes contact and pulls Samus free. She turns upside down and slams into the ceiling. With powerful boosters she launches herself back at the Ing, light cannon charging. Back in it's beast form, the Ing uses three legs to lunge itself up at Samus and gives her suit a huge gash before she can fire. After slamming face-first into the ground, her visor is full of static. The Ing is approaching. Fast. Unable to focus or see, she gets up and fires reckless blind shots.

A grueling grunt of pain echoes through the sky.

The static clears. Samus sees the warrior charging full speed. She fires again; dead-on. Light peirces the Ing. It's bleeding life-energy but it won't stop. Aggression and fear overcomes Samus. Nothing has ever been this scary before, and death had never been more real. From her arm cannon is unleashed a massive combination of light and missles. The Ing Warrior falls a few meters short of reaching it's prey. Samus doesn't stop. She obliterates the body with all her rage until its remains evaporate by whatever twisted physics make it do so.

Samus looks down at her side.

_Oh no... NO!_

There is a small gash in the suit, going all the way through.

She holds the spot with her hand as she coughs from the atmosphere and stumbles away as fast as possible. The closest portal chamber is too far. Dark Aether's poison...is leaking into the suit.


	2. War on Aether

All is silent except for a low mechanical rumbling.

_The Energy Controller?_

Familiar red orbs lining the walls seem to stare at Samus as she wakes up.

U-Mos gazes out of the temple and across the planet. It's his job to protect dormant Luminoth until the Ing are defeated. The spiritual guardian, who is very tall, carries an aurora of comfort around him all the time. Sensing that the hero has regained consciousness, he does not turn to look at her and instead uses telepathy.

A mixture of emotions and words.

He's not mad at her for the incident, for almost dying, for making him leave the Great Temple vulnerable while he saved her. U-Mos understands how fierce the Ing are from his own battles.

_He doesn't think less of my ability now, but sees my near-death as just one unlucky event..._

"That is right," spoke U-Mos, "I will keep fighting, and you will keep fighting. Nothing has changed. Now please go."

Samus dashes out of the temple as fast as possible.

…

…

…

Over the course of the next month, Samus was her usual self. With minimal fear and with perfect aim, she outright destroyed her opponents, obliterating them before they could do much of anything. Ings couldn't usually get close before their vision was blinded with light and their body vaporized. Space Pirate guards would be on their usual shift when with no warning the Hunter would burst into sight, instantly killing the first guard she saw, its alien body spewing everywhere. Other guards would take cover, but this was only delaying the inevitable.

Dark Samus, a reincarnation of Metroid Prime, helped kill off the Space Pirates until they were no longer a threat on Aether. Occasionally Samus would encounter her dark counterpart; they would each fire a few shots before backing out, both feeling unready to take the other one on.

Fortresses were invaded, energy was stolen, the Ing's best generals were fought and conquered, but often not before nearly ending Samus.

All across the planet, the Luminoth fought the Ing. There were some major battles, but it was mostly either guerrilla warfare or one side defending from another's invasions. The Ing dominated. All the Luminoth could do was slow down their extermination enough to buy Samus time.

The mission got more complicated as Aether became harder and harder to figure out. After Samus absorbed the last of Dark Aether's energy, her phazonic counterpart was ready for a fight to the death. This duel would decide the war, and Samus went down as the most important hero in Luminoth hisory as she landed the final blow, vaporizing Dark Samus like all the Ing before.

…...

…...

…...

Author's note:

Thanks a ton for reading. In case you didn't realize this, the second part of the chapter is basically a summary of Metroid Prime 2's events. However the events are greatly altered to make it seem less like a video game and more realistic. I will continue to do this throughout future chapters.

You're probably thinking that this story is in the wrong section, but this will turn into an F-Zero crossover. I think I can make it work.

The first two chapters aren't super descriptive, but that's cause they're background chapters. Chapter 3 will start up some real stuff.


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